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Fifth seed James Blake offered no excuses after his Australian Open was ended by Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez, who won 7-5 6-4 7-6 (7-4).

The American came into the tournament in arguably the best form of his life after winning at the Medibank International in Sydney. However, in the day’s biggest upset he was bundled out in three bruising sets by the dual-Olympic gold medallist.

“He [Gonzalez] played better today. Served better, returned better,” said Blake. “I’m sure there are a million reasons, a million excuses I could come up with. That’s never been my style, though. He won. He’s going through to the quarter-finals. I’m not.”

Argentinian David Nalbandian was left to count the cost of an error-ridden performance after he was defeated 4-6 6-3 6-2 6-3 by German number 12 seed Tommy Haas.

Nalbandian took the first set with relative ease as Haas amassed a whopping 15 unforced errors but the South American appeared to lose his way in the subsequent three sets.

In stark contrast, Haas hit just 13 unforced errors in the last three sets to take the match and book a place in the quarter-finals. Nalbandian, who has made at least the quarter-finals at Melbourne Park since 2003, attributed his defeat to a knee strain.

“I think maybe I couldn’t still push as much as I wanted, [because] it falls down a little bit,” he said.

“I felt a little bit better in the beginning and then started to feel more [pain]. I thought I could move good but I couldn’t.”

However, Nalbandian did concede his troublesome knee had not been the sole reason for his loss.

“He played very good. I mean, he’s a good player. He served very good, as well,” added Nalbandian. “I couldn’t return as I wanted. He served really good and I couldn’t do much with my return.”